economy
Definitions
General English
- adjective cheap, often because of being sold in large sizes or quantities
- noun something you do to avoid wasting money or materials
Accounting
- noun an action which is intended to stop money or materials from being wasted, or the quality of being careful not to waste money or materials
- noun the financial state of a country, or the way in which a country makes and uses its money
Cars & Driving
- noun (especially low) consumption of fuel, usually measured in miles per gallon
Cricket
- noun a statistic used in records of a bowler’s performance for showing the average number of runs conceded for each over bowled. In mid-2006, e.g., Shane Warne’s ‘economy’ rate stood at 2.64, calculated by dividing runs scored off his bowling (17297) by the number of overs bowled (just over 6500).
Politics
- noun the careful use of waste money or materials
Travel
- noun actions intended to save money or resources
Origin & History of “economy”
The underlying notion contained in the word economy is of ‘household management’. It comes, via French or Latin, from Greek oikonomíā, a derivative of oikonómos, a term for the ‘steward of a household’. this was a compound noun formed from oikos ‘house’ (a word related to the -wich element in many English place-names) and némein ‘manage’ (ultimate source of English antinomian and nomad). The original sense ‘household management’ was carried through into English. It broadened out in the 17th century to the management of a nation’s resources (a concept at first termed more fully political economy), while the use of the derivative economics for the theoretical study of the creation and consumption of wealth dates from the early 19th century.
